


i think that i forgot to say your name

by electrumqueen



Series: if this is the long haul [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Brainwashing, Gen, Post-Soldier Enhancement Program | SEP (Overwatch), Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:56:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29703693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electrumqueen/pseuds/electrumqueen
Summary: Jack made the Asset lose it, every time. But there were only two people on his side and one of them was Jack, so the Asset would have to get over it.
Relationships: Reaper | Gabriel Reyes & Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison
Series: if this is the long haul [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2184618
Kudos: 3





	i think that i forgot to say your name

The room was at the bottom of a very deep pit, way out in the desert. They couldn't afford to have it in Zurich; Jack had had to let Gabriel use some Blackwatch assets to help set it up. He had bitched about it the entire god damn time, like he was the one doing Gabriel the favour, like it wasn't Gabriel's ops that would be running less than optimal because Jack _knew_ the UN funding they got always fucked Gabriel and his people and that was just the way it fucking went.

It was a little room, a cell at the bottom of an elevator shaft. It had started out life as a cache for a doomsday prepper in the area; when he died his children, who lived out of state, were happy to get cash from an anonymous buyer for it. It had solar panelling and foot-thick concrete on all the walls, and it had never been a military or governmental asset. It was the best they could do. 

They had been trying to wake him up for five years. Every time they thought it was going a little better it suddenly sharply pivoted to worse. It would have been easier if they could have looped their teammates in - Torbjörn could have done something with the arm, maybe with whatever it was that was maintaining the neural conditioning. But they couldn't risk it. They had stolen military property - more than themselves, for which they were already on thin ice. Ana had Fareeha now. Torbjörn had Ingrid. They had already lost Mina. They couldn't ask their friends to give up more than they already had, more than they already did.

Not to mention that the thing - the person - that they had stolen was dangerous, lethal to anyone but them. 

So the work was slow and expensive, and more than that exhausting. Every time Jack looked worse and worse, paper-thin around the eyes in a way that even the thickest fighting during the Omnic Crisis had not caused. Gabriel did not know how he looked about it. He assumed better than Jack, but maybe that was just arrogance. 

He knew he was going to get a headache about it, the kind that split you through the skull. He could already feel it throbbing at his temples, and they hadn't even woken the fucker up yet. He sighed.

Jack shot him a look: kind of a question, but not really. They could not, in fact, reschedule. Their schedules were not their own. They'd been lucky to get these two days, and would pay for them disproportionately. Half of Blackwatch thought they were having an affair, and Gabriel had encouraged that rumour as cover for the truth. It wasn't like Vincent was around to get pissed off anymore.

"Just a headache," Gabriel said. He waved Jack on with the authority he wasn't allowed to have anymore, but which still mostly worked on him in here. "It's your show, anyway."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Fine," he said. "Play it like that." But he held out his arms to let Gabriel check his armour over. They'd made mistakes before and paid for them, but the upshot of that was that they had a well oiled routine. 

"Go?" Gabriel asked. He checked the lock on the door again - nobody was getting out until the timer went off and the code was inputted, in an hour. Until then the world was just this room, with its console and three chairs and the cryotube standing at the centre. He checked his own armour, and submitted to Jack's quick frisk.

"Go," Jack agreed. He went to the cryotube and initiated the sequence and both of them settled into their folding chairs to wait. 

At first it had been repellant to watch, and worrying when it wasn't disgusting. Five years in it was just another thing that happened. The worst part was at the end, when the Asset half-fell out of the tube, screaming. The sound he made was beyond animal, an assault on superpowered hearing. They couldn't afford anything that would mute the hearing, though. Couldn't risk the slightest disadvantage. The Asset wasn't as advanced as they were, but he had the advantage of being perfectly happy to kill them and sit while their bodies cooled.

By now Gabriel had learned the truth of war: the more you had to save just meant the more you had to lose. 

The Asset fell to his knees, gasping. It had to fucking hurt. They said modern cryo didn't hurt as much as the old stuff, but requisitioning a new tube would draw more heat than they could afford, and transferring him from tube to tube seemed like a whole kiddie pool of fish to fry. Besides, when he was hurting, he was off his game. 

Still, he just looked like a man. Gabriel had been through enough of his own excruciating medical procedures to be able to sympathize.

Jack came off the chair, with slow careful steps, showing every movement, showing that he was unarmed and his neck was bare. "Hey, Grandpa," Jack said.

The Asset snarled, lunging for him.

"None of that," Gabriel snapped, stepping in front of Jack, a movement fast enough that the Asset fell back, cowed. Jack let him do it but Gabriel could feel those heavy eyes on the back of his neck; he'd get it when they were out of the room. Whatever, this was the division of labour they'd agreed on. Jack talked to him, and Gabriel made sure he didn't hit either of them. Jack's job was worse and it couldn't be compromised by him defending himself. The second Jack used force on the Asset, any at all, the exercise would be over and they'd have to wrestle him back into the tube. 

The Asset - Winter Soldier, one of the agencies had called him sometimes - snapped back. Sharp, feral. The mean-looking muzzle strapped across his face kept any real words from coming out, and muffled the sounds beside, but it kept him from biting. Bite marks were a bitch to explain away, even with the jacked up SEP healing rate.

Jack made the Asset lose it, every time. But there were only two people on his side and one of them was Jack, so the Asset would have to get over it. 

"You look like shit, gramps," Gabriel said. He made himself smile, made it drag across his face like he did in interrogations. "You sure you don't want to sit tight, have a cookie?"

This was Jack's cue and he took it, walking around Gabriel to kneel before the Asset. They never turned the conditioning on, had not ever wiped his memory according to the instructions on file. They hadn't had to speak to agree to that, though maybe if they had they'd be any further into this godforsaken process. Jack's theory was that holding off on it was allowing the enhancements to kick in, do something about all the neurological rewiring. Gabriel remained unconvinced that the rewiring was the problem. 

Jack reached out and undid the muzzle. It fell away into his hand; he dropped it and held both palms up, no weapons. None of them in the room needed any weapons to be deadly. They'd learned the hard way that bringing them in at all was a recipe for escalation.

The Asset shook his head but did not bite. The stringy hair fell like a curtain into his eyes. "The fuck do you want, rookies?" His voice was rusty, hoarse with disuse. This was honestly more verbal than they'd gotten him before; maybe Jack's theory wasn't bullshit.

Jack settled onto his knees, those hands still up, still open. He was good at this shit - good cop, bad cop. Everyone was good at being good cop but Jack had the balance of it right. He was earnest, honest. Like a school principal, genuinely in pain that you didn't want to make the right choice.

"Not rookies anymore, grandpa," Jack said. "Thirteen whole years we've been out of the program. Saved the world at least once a year since."

"Huh," said the Asset. "The rest of them died, right?"

Gabriel laughed. Couldn't help it. Here was this fucking popsicle, cutting right through Jack's carefully planned speech about the future and the rights of persons human and otherwise; he'd had cue cards that he'd been practicing with on the drive over. "Yeah," he said. "Your blood poisoned them. We're the only two left."

"And Ops?"

"We rank 'em," Jack said, clearly holding back a scowl. "Like I said, saved the world. Keep saving it."

"Doesn't mean much, in my experience," the Asset said. But he narrowed his eyes. "Does that make you Ops?"

Gabriel could feel the agitation building in Jack's shoulders. It had been a long trip out here and they'd blown off a whole bunch of UN shit to do it. That was more on Jack than Gabriel, but Jack _was_ Gabriel's, so it washed out.

"Fuck no," Gabriel said. "It makes us your beloved grandchildren who want to guide you to a healthy and happy retirement."

The Asset laughed for a long time. So long Jack darted his eyes to Gabriel like _what the fuck_ and Gabriel just quirked his mouth to say _wait it out_. Finally the laughing turned into a deep wracking cough and then petered out. "Fuck," the Asset said, bare-ass naked on all fours on the concrete floor, wiping his mouth with the back of the flesh hand. "Just what I always wanted. Grandchildren."

Jack said, "We brought you some food." The files actually said not to feed the Asset fresh out of cold storage but fuck that; they'd tested it out themselves, put Jack in for an hour and then let him out, and the e-ration slurry the files recommended was just as good as a banana pb & j. "And uh, if you want clothes." 

The Asset blinked at them. He looked upsettingly human, sitting there, without the mask. Just like a naked guy who maybe needed to take a shower and put on a shirt. Not a super-weapon. Maybe that was Gabe's own bias talking.

"Too much," Gabe murmured. Just because he was verbal didn't mean he was in top shape. The man hadn't made an independent decision for a hundred years. He'd probably exhausted himself with the minute of banter. 

"Right." Jack reached into the cooler and pulled out the electrolyte drink and the sandwich. He put them down on the concrete and scooted back.

"Steve," the Asset said thoughtfully, turning cool eyes onto Jack.

"No," Jack said. "My name is Jack. Jack Morrison. I know I look - like him. But I'm not."

They'd thought about giving him fake names, for a while. John for Jack, maybe Michael for Gabriel. Ultimately Jack had said, _I don't want to lie to him_ and Gabriel had conceded that if the Asset was in a position to give Jack and Gabriel up to someone with any power over them, things would already be pretty god damn fucked. 

The Asset made another low, mournful sound. Flinched, then, like he thought they would stop him. Like he thought he'd be hurt.

"It's okay," Jack murmured, in a low easy voice Gabriel had never heard him use before. "You made us, Grandpa. We're here to look after you."

They had _never_ gotten this far. 

The nickname - Grandpa - had started out as a joke. Something about bloodlines, about the way the SEP had cannibalized all the programs before it to spit out death and murder and also, Reyes and Morrison. But they didn't know how ready the Asset would be to hear his real name, the name he'd been born with, and neither of them wanted to call him _the Asset,_ figured the second they talked to him like he was one the game would be over. So he was Grandpa, in here, and they'd managed to explain to him that they were augmented like him, but that it was only possible because he'd been the first. 

The Asset stared at the bottle. 

Jack held up his open hands again, came forward and screwed the lid open, then raised the bottle to his lips and drank. Proof of safety and demonstration of use. 

The Asset stared at Jack.

Jack put the bottle down, top open, and scooted back. 

The Asset made a soft, inquisitive sound, and picked up the bottle and drank from it. Probably used to IVs. Maybe something worse. Gabriel didn't particularly want to think about it, though of course he had, already, to make sure there was nothing in the go bag that was likely to set him off. 

Jack took a bite of the sandwich, chewed and swallowed, and handed it over. This time the Asset took it from his hand. 

Jack looked up at Gabriel like a fucking inner city kid with a horse and a carrot, some bullshit like that. Goddamn if it didn't make Gabriel feel a little soft, though, the wonder on Jack's face cutting through the constant guilt that suffused him down here. 

The Asset ate in neat bites, cross legged and unbothered by his nakedness. Not too fast, not worryingly slow. He did not take his eyes off Jack. 

Jack, in return, did not move. He acted like he was used to it, comfortable under that unrelenting stare. 

"I think that I should sleep," the Asset said, finally, flatly, eyes roving around the room. "Unless I'm needed."

"No, go ahead," Jack said. He looked at Gabriel helplessly. "We don't have -" 

Gabriel sighed and fished around in the go bag. Tarpaulin and emergency blanket. Good enough. 

He passed them over to Jack, who murmured his thanks as he cleared a corner for the Asset. 

Gabriel watched the Asset watch Jack. The man - and that was what he was, Gabriel had to believe it - looked young. Of course he hadn't really aged since they'd smuggled him out of the basement in Colorado Springs. Jack was thirty-two now, Gabriel three years older. The Asset was maybe twenty-seven, twenty-eight. The record keeping wasn't amazing. He had been unfrozen for some months at a time for training but that appeared to be the largest chunk of time, otherwise only up for a week at a time, two for a longer mission. He hadn't been for infiltration. He hadn't been allowed to age. 

Jack finished up, petting the tarp with his palm like you might for a dog or a child. "We have clothes," he said, softly. 

The Asset blinked at him and curled up like a cat on the blanket, pointedly closing his eyes. The metal arm gleamed. 

"Think that's a no," Gabriel said. 

"Yeah, yeah." Jack got up and came back to Gabriel, walking awkwardly to avoid leaving his back to the Asset. He sat down next to Gabriel; they sat there quietly for a while.

Finally the door chirped. They could leave now as long as they’d inputted the code.

"We gotta call Ana," Gabriel said. He kept one eye on the Asset, but even if he wasn't sleeping it was a convincing pretense. 

Jack made a face. Did not speak. He was looking at the Asset, too. 

"You and I both know we're not leaving him here," Gabriel said. "Cut the shit." 

Maybe he was kind of mad about the promotion. For all the shit Gabriel had done for a higher power and for his own satisfaction, he had never been the Asset's handler. He had been willing to take that from Jack, to absolve him. 

Jack was too good for that, like he was too good for Blackwatch and too good for Gabriel. Yet again, Gabriel was relieved that one drunken kiss hadn't gone anywhere. They were barely friends right now; it could only have gotten exponentially worse if they'd been anything more. 

Besides, Jack really wasn't Gabriel's type. Too fucking blond. 

"Zurich is-" Jack swallowed. "If he can stay like this, human, I don't think they'd start an incident. Nobody's asked for him back."

"Not yet," Gabriel said. That was his thankless job, too, to pretend that the worst most pessimistic instincts were the ones they should follow. "He's thinking of you as his handler."

"Better than him trying to kill me." Jack sighed, stretched his legs out in front of him. "He's doing better than he ever has before." 

Gabriel shifted the bulk of his gaze to Jack, searching that familiar, infuriating, face. "You're doing it on purpose."

"Not conditioning," Jack said, swiftly, eyes on the Asset. His jaw clenched just a little. "Nothing overt. Just body language, tone of voice. He'd be back to biting if I didn't."

Gabriel narrowed his eyes. His vision was SEP-excellent; he could see every line around Jack's eyes, every wrinkle. The faint grey coming in at his temples, though he was too goddamn young for it. "If we can pull this off he won't thank you for it. I wouldn't."

"If we can pull this off," Jack said, eyes unwavering, "he'll be able to do whatever the fuck he wants." That imperious god damn voice. As though Gabriel was just another footsoldier in Jack's own private army. 

"All right," Gabriel said. "Call Ana." To forestall the objection, "You know if anyone has to take him down it's me. I can't be distracted, and you can't hurt him. If he needs to talk I’ll buy you the time.”

"Fine." Jack's jaw worked again and then he swallowed and said, "This is important."

Gabriel wanted to smack him upside the head, like he would have when they were in training, or during the Crisis, when they had been friends. "Of course it's important," he said. "I wouldn't be here if it wasn't."

The Asset slept, unmoving.

Gabriel rolled onto his haunches to wait. 


End file.
